Firefly’s Blue Ghost Lander Reaches Lunar Orbit, Prepares for Landing

Firefly’s Blue Ghost Lander Reaches Lunar Orbit, Prepares for Landing

Image: Firefly Aerospace

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander successfully entered lunar orbit, a key milestone on the path to landing on the Moon. Thursday, the Texas aerospace firm reported its lander accomplished a Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) maneuver, using its main engine and thrusters for four minutes and 15 seconds. This maneuver put the lander into an elliptical orbit around the Moon, a significant step before its scheduled lunar surface landing in the next few weeks.

The Blue Ghost lander embarked on a journey onboard a NASA Kennedy Space Center-launched Falcon 9 rocket almost a month ago under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program of NASA. The third such mission under CLPS, the mission aims to send scientific payloads to the Moon in a cost-efficient manner. The safe landing of the lander in lunar orbit is a significant milestone for Firefly Aerospace and the entire lunar exploration process.

Brigette Oakes, Firefly’s VP of Engineering, explained her own enthusiasm for the mission as an incredible accomplishment for the team. “The team energy right now is just a whole other level,” she stated. Oakes, who has grown up with stories of the Apollo missions, shared how deeply personal it was to witness a new era of lunar exploration opening up.

Ten NASA payloads, such as the Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER) and the Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS) 1.1 instrument, board the Blue Ghost lander. These will research the Moon’s heat flow and investigate the plume formed during its descent. This mission has the record for most NASA payloads aboard a single CLPS lander to date.

During the next 16 days, the lander will perform further system checkouts and maneuvers to circularize its orbit in preparation for the target landing in Mare Crisium close to Mons Latreille. The targeted landing time is 3:45 a.m. EDT (0745 UTC), and the mission should deliver useful information on lunar science and technology.